My daughter’s turning 11 and she wants a treasure hunt at her party. So I’m trying to come up with a string of brain teasers/clues that will be challenging but not frustrating for a group of bright 11-year-olds.
What I’m thinking so far:
Some riddles. I could even use the good old Hobbit one for “egg,” and put the next clue in the fridge on top of the eggs or something.
Cryptographs. They’ve more than mastered the simple A=Z, B=Y format, but something a little more challenging without being too hard would work. (Suggestions welcome.)
Taking a photo of an object/location from a weird angle or super close up, so they have to think a bit to identify it.
Maybe a relatively small jigsaw puzzle, with the next location written on the back in a way that you really can’t read it until you have the puzzle put together.
Any other ideas? We did this two years ago, and they tore through about 15 clues in ten minutes. I’d love to give them a bit more work this time, and of course they’re all two years’ smarter now!
Clearly I need to lock them all in the guest room with some coded lock boxes, a safe, and a screwdriver, then kick back and drink some cocktails while they figure their way out!
Seriously, I’ll have to see if I can come up with a practical “escape the room” type puzzle or two with household items. They’ll really get a kick out of it!
I’d do it where you are sent on a scavenger hunt. Each clue leads you to another piece of a big puzzle as well as clue to the next piece. When they get them all, they have to assemble the puzzle. Maybe something like:
Get a foot locker (or similar) and a combination lock. Use your daughter’s birthday as clues to figure out the combination to open the locker.
Combination= 36 Left- 12 Right- 20 Left
Clues if her birthday were today:
The day of the month your birthday falls on + 12=_________ Left
If January equals 1 and February equals 2, what is your birthday month +6= ____Right
The last two digits of the year you were born +17= _____Left.
The clue inside says “I have a face and two hands and can tell you one thing. What am I?” and have the next clue taped to the bottom of an analog clock.
The next clue comes with a compass and tells them to start at the back door of the house, walk ten paces towards the sun, twenty paces to the left, thirty paces this way. etc.
If you don’t mind a little mess, maybe cordon off a small area in the yard they can dig up. Do a treasure map with a big X on it and tell them they have to dig in a specific location to find whatever it is you buried.
To slow them down so you’ll get them thinking more than 10 mins, maybe use video clues. Tell them they have to go to some youtube video and take the 18th word spoken in that video or something like that to piece together a clue.
Or if you know exactly who’s coming, base the puzzle on the kids. First letter of the month in which the oldest kid has his birthday, or something like that.
I did something like this with my religious school students to introduce them to materials in the synagogue library (and there was a cool treasure box at the end). One puzzle was a series of questions about Judaism or Jewish history, and the question was phrased “If Solomon was the king who built the first Temple, cross out all the Ys in the letters below, if not, cross out all the Xs.” Once they had crossed out several letters, the ones that were left spelled out a message that sent them to a location.
You could use a different type of question, one that required them to seek out things in the house-- like, “If the milk in the refrigerator is inside the door, cross out all the Xs; if it’s on the shelf, cross out all the Ys.”
The more the kids have to run around and look for things, the more fun these games are for them, IME.
You could build a message by using words in a book, eg, “The last word on page 4; the first word on page 35, the first word of the second paragraph on page 100,” and use a riddle to get them to look for the book in the first place. Make it something obvious, like a popular kids book.
This party will take care of itself, and you can sit back, once you’ve printed out the clues.
Try having the kids in two or three teams. Tell them they have to share the treasure with everyone, (a box full of candy, or something), but there will be an extra prize for the team that finds it. Or you could even just give ribbons to the winners. The competition will keep them working at a brisk pace. Put envelopes in the locations with enough copies of the next clue for each team to have one.
Thanks guys! All these ideas sound awesome (well, maybe not digging up the yard, but maybe I can find a corner of the garden or something).
For our craft/favor, we’re doing Sharpie tie dye, so I think the final “treasure” will be the t-shirts, Sharpies, etc. that we need for that. My daughter doesn’t know I have that planned, so it’ll be a nice surprise. And it won’t involve anyone “winning” over other people - just signal the transition to the next activity.
There’s a free site (Ambigram.com) that will generate ambigrams for you. You can enter two words of the same length (e.g. “back” and “door”), and it will create an image that looks like the first word one way and the second word when you flip it upside-down. I’ve seen more artistic and easier to read ambigrams elsewhere, but for this kind of activity the rough and somewhat difficult to read letters seem appropriate.
You can also do ambigrams that are the same word each way, although that doesn’t seem useful for a treasure hunt.
Maybe your clues could lead to different pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, that gives them the final answer when assembled? This one seems like it has a reasonable number of pieces, and ties in with your party theme.
